


And Tender Loving Kisses On Your Stab Wounds

by imawalkingtravesty



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Awesome James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Child Abuse, Depressed Tony Stark, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark at MIT, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, MIT Era, Mood Swings, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Recreational Drug Use, References to Depression, Tony Stark Has Daddy Issues, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29007132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imawalkingtravesty/pseuds/imawalkingtravesty
Summary: Tony risked a glance over at Rhodey only to see that he had his eyes determinedly in the other direction. Rhodey wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. The lump in his throat grew two sizes and he struggled to swallow around it.He wanted to cry.In which stress gets the best of Tony's moods and it affects the one relationship that he actually cared about.
Relationships: Howard Stark & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark
Comments: 31
Kudos: 121





	And Tender Loving Kisses On Your Stab Wounds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ready_to_Rumble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ready_to_Rumble/gifts).



> MIT RHODEY & TONY my favourite  
> No seriously rec me some good fics in the comments (or your own, y'know, I'll read 'em) I need some reads, whether it be angsty or fluffy idc I miss Tony Stark :(
> 
> A HUGE thank you to ready_to_rumble for giving me some awesome ideas, I've got another fic in the works thanks to you <3
> 
> And a TW for suicidal ideations, emetophobia, child abuse, and of course a complete lack of self-care on Tony's part. Please take care of yourself, you're worth it :)

Tony Stark had no idea what knots were.

Math was great. Tony totally respected math, it was important, especially in physics and chemistry and engineering, the other subjects that he very, very much enjoyed. But the topology unit was a whole other level of confusion, all the dimensions, and how the heck would he be able to apply them to in real life? He looked at his textbook again for the seventh time to try to make sense of the definition.

_In mathematics, a knot is an embedding of a topological circle S¹ in 3-dimensional Euclidean space, R³, considered up to continuous deformations._

Tony blinked. He read it again. _What the heck._ He read the definition below it.

_Euclidean space is the fundamental space of classical geometry._

It would probably help if he knew what classical geometry was. He checked the index and flipped to the page with the definition, licking his finger to turn the papers.

_Classical (Euclidean) geometry is a mathematical system attributed to Alexandrian Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry: the Elements. Euclid's method consists in assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms, and deducing many other propositions (theorems) from these_.

That didn’t help. He wrote it down anyway. He had to make the outline for his math paper, then he would type it up on the computer once he got to the library.

Working on something that he didn’t enjoy working on made his legs bounce and his fingers restless. It made his mind wander elsewhere, thinking of something that he actually wanted to work on. It was great, because that meant that Tony actually had a very clear idea of what he enjoyed and thoroughly excelled in those areas, but the downside was that for the required classes and units that didn’t quite hold his attention; he did miserably in them. Like topology, for example.

His phone rang, and grateful for the distraction, he picked it up. “H’lo?”

“Tony, my boy. I have an offer,” Obadiah Stane’s voice said, tinny through the speaker.

“What is it?” Tony leaned back in his chair, twirling his pen in the air.

“Your father recently finished the prototype for his new unnamed missile. He’s busy. I was wondering if you wanted to take a look at it and make some notes about aerodynamics and the science-y stuff you two like,” Obie said, and Tony sighed, weighing his options.

He had so much work to do. Being a student was demanding, especially balancing his rather impressive social life and the work asked of him. But he loved building so much, he loved improving designs, he loved working with his hands.

“I would love to, but I have about fifteen other things going on right now,” Tony said into the phone, cringing.

“C’mon, Tony. Think of it as practice for R and D. Your father would be proud of you, he’s in on it too,” Obie pressed.

“My dad? He asked if I could work on it?” Tony asked, sitting up straight in his chair. That was weird.

“Yeah! Figured it could kinda prepare you for when you really get in the business. You’re smart. He knew you could do it.” Obie sounded way too cheerful.

“He asked?” Tony repeated, his eyebrows raising.

“Yup.”

“Well… okay,” Tony agreed. He could do it. Sleep was for the weak, anyway. 

“Perfect! I’ll scan the blue prints and email them to you.”

“Thanks, Obie. That’s, uh, really out of character for him.” Tony was still a bit skeptical of it all, really.

“Nah, he knows you’re smart. I’ll call you later.” Obie waved Tony’s concerns away.

“Okay. Bye.”

Tony hung up, then slammed his face into his textbook, groaning. If Obie hadn’t brought up his father, then he maybe would’ve been able to say no. But he always pulled that card. _Your father would be proud._ Tony wished he could ignore it, but the child in him was still aching for praise, even if he’d be the last to admit it.

He lifted his head again, determined to get the outline of his math paper over with before he checked his email. It sucked that they wouldn’t let him have a computer in his dorm room, but in a way, it was harder to distract him without a screen. Plus, he didn’t want to be the _daddy’s favourite_ by being the only student in the entire hall who had a computer. It was just asking for a break-in and bullying.

_A knot in R3 (or alternatively in the 3-sphere, S3), can be projected onto a plane R2 (respectively a sphere S2). This projection is almost always regular, meaning that it is injective everywhere, except at a finite number of crossing points, which are the projections of only two points of the knot, and these points are not collinear._

“‘sup, Tones.”

“Hey.”

Rhodey threw his bag in his bed, rolling his shoulders to stretch them. “I had the worst day.”

“Do tell.” Tony didn’t look up from his textbook.

“It started with lukewarm coffee, which by itself would ruin any day, and…”

Rhodey kept going, but Tony didn’t pay attention. He needed to get the work done before he checked the blueprints, and he _really_ wanted to work on that missile. His mind kept wandering to the designs, even though he hadn’t looked them over yet and didn’t even have an idea as to what they _looked like_. He didn’t care about topology really, so he just kind of wrote down whatever felt important and hoped that it would be enough for his professor. He was smart. His father had said so. He could do this.

“...you’re not even listening. I have nobody to be my agony aunt,” Rhodey said, throwing his hands in the air. 

“Sounds horrible,” Tony said, nodding. He wrote a sentence.

_Regular isotopy is the equivalence relation of link diagrams that is generated by using the 2nd and 3rd Reidemeister moves only._

“You suck.” Rhodey picked up his bag and left the dorm, and Tony barely noticed. 

A good half hour later, Tony finally allowed himself a minute to think of something other than math. He looked around the room, noticed that Rhodey was no longer present, and backtracked in his memory. _When had he left? Had he even been in the room in the first place?_ His brain liked to hyperfixate, liked to shut out everything around him, for better or for worse. He thought hard, vaguely remembering Rhodey saying something in an exasperated tone of voice...

He stood up quickly as soon as he realized that Rhodey was mad at him, and he scrambled for his flip phone to call him. The dial tone rang and Tony paced behind his desk chair, taking five steps forward before turning around and taking five more steps the other way. He counted the seconds it took Rhodey to answer.

“Hello?”

“It’s Tony.”

“Hey man! What’s up?”

Tony paused. He didn’t sound mad. Heck, he sounded more than okay, and Tony could hear voices cheering in the background. “Where are you?”

“Common room. Someone got a new Super Mario Bros game, and we’re taking turns,” Rhodey said. That explained the cheering.

“You mad at me?” Tony asked finally. “Sorry. I wasn’t listening to you.”

“What?”

“When you were, you were complaining, and you left, and you-” Tony stopped, embarrassed, realizing that Rhodey didn’t have a clue what he was on about. “Nevermind.”

“Oh. That. You’re an overthinker, man, I didn’t mean anything by that.” Rhodey laughed on the other end, and Tony let out a breath of air he didn’t know he was holding. He let his shoulders relax.

“Okay. Okay. Yeah. Sorry,” he said quickly, stopping his pacing. He stayed standing behind his chair, leaning his elbows on the backrest.

“Don’t worry about it. What time is it? I’ll pick up some food.” Rhodey offered. “Dining hall food sucks ass anyway.”

Tony glanced at his watch. “It’s six thirty-seven.”

“Don’t go for dinner. I’ll bring you something,” Rhodey said, and the noise of the common room faded as he walked away. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“No problem. Sorry I made you worry.”

“Sorry,” Tony apologized anyway.

“See ya.” Rhodey hung up and Tony flipped his phone closed. He threw it on the desk beside him, took a deep breath in, and dove back into his textbook.

He flipped to the applications section, desperate to find an explanation that could hold his attention.

_Topology is relevant to physics in areas such as condensed matter physics, quantum field theory and physical cosmology._   
_In Robotics, the possible positions of a robot can be described by a manifold called configuration space. In the area of motion planning, one finds paths between two points in configuration space. These paths represent a motion of the robot's joints and other parts into the desired pose._

He could work with that. Those were fields he enjoyed. 

_His brain wouldn’t concentrate._

Fifteen minutes later, Rhodey came back with bags of takeout in hand. Tony, smelling the food, turned around and stared at the bags greedily. “What did you get?”

“Chinese. My favourite.” Rhodey placed the food on his desk and pulled out a white styrofoam container of fried rice with vegetables and General Tso’s chicken. “This one’s yours.”

Tony grabbed a fork from the plastic cutlery pile and took the container from Rhodey. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

“Next time we get takeout, it’s on you.” Rhodey pointed a menacing plastic fork at Tony before digging into his own food.

Tony took small forkfuls of rice as he tried to make sense of his textbook, getting increasingly frustrated as he read. There was no building in topology, at least as far as he had learned, and it was just so _boring._ None of it was hands-on, it was all just hypothetical, hypothetically manipulated, and he couldn’t concentrate. He pushed the now-empty takeout container to the far corner of his desk and tried to get back to focusing on the subject. Once he got into the rhythm again, it was easy, but it just wasn’t happening.

Rhodey too finished his food and sat at his desk, tapping his pencil as he studied. It became increasingly annoying, but since Rhodey had bought food for him, Tony decided not to say anything. But he couldn’t _concentrate._ His leg bounced underneath the desk and he took deep breaths, but his skin was crawling and he really needed to move.

“I’m going on a walk,” he announced, standing up.

“Can I come?” Rhodey asked.

“Sure.” Tony pulled on his shoes and grabbed a key, waiting for Rhodey.

They walked in silence in the later evening, fall setting in. Tony shivered. He should’ve worn a sweater, but he wouldn’t be gone too long. The street lamps were on around the path, and they followed it around campus, the sun getting lower with every passing minute. Tony watched his shoes, trying to clear his mind. He really didn’t want to go back to his paper, and his mind kept wandering to the blueprints waiting for him in his inbox.

“What are you working on, anyway?” Rhodey asked eventually, fifteen minutes into their walk.

“Knots.” Tony didn’t feel like talking.

“Let me know if you need help.”

“Okay.” There was no way he was going to ask. He was smart enough.

The silence was suddenly tense, Tony realizing that maybe his short and succinct words didn’t quite match Rhodey’s helpful energy. 

“Well, aren’t you passive aggressive today?” Rhodey said, irritated.

Tony sighed, kicking at a rock. Rhodey wasn’t one to let anything slide.

“Had I known you were gonna be this pissy I wouldn’t have come with you,” he said. Tony suddenly found himself sour.

“Then go back.” He had wanted to walk alone anyway.

“Are we fighting now?” Rhodey asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Look, if I’m that hard to be around, maybe you should leave,” Tony spat, crossing his arms defensively.

“Maybe I should.”

“Go, then.”

“Sorry for trying to be nice to you! I’ll keep this in mind for next time!” Rhodey shouted over his shoulder as he turned and walked back, not at all sorry.

Tony stopped and sat on a bench once Rhodey was out of view. He buried his face in his hands, rubbing at his eyes. This was not how he wanted the night to go, and there was no way he could go back to the dorm for another hour or so. If he was going to be petty like the teenager he was, he had to wait until at least eleven o’clock to return. 

He hated fighting with Rhodey, but lately he’d either been borderline angry all the time, or anxious, or sad, there was never just an _oh-I’m-having-fun-and-thoroughly-enjoying-life-right-now_ feeling. It was draining, quite honestly, with the mood swings and the work piling on top of it. Was he on his period? Questionable, considering his biology, but the random bad moods and the depressing constant hole in his chest no matter the emotion was making him think otherwise.

He went to the library instead, logged onto one of the computers, and checked his email, figuring that he may as well be productive while he was being annoying. He glanced over the blueprints in his inbox, and printed them out. He kept the sheets by his side while he worked a little on his computer science project while he was at a computer, and soon enough, he found himself focusing on the project. 

Coding came so naturally. Strings, loops, booleans and arrays, it all made sense in Tony’s brain. The correct input meant the right output. As long as he didn’t make a mistake (and he _never_ made mistakes when it came to coding), the finished project turned out flawless. His fingers flew across the keyboard as his brain translated what he wanted the program to do into the program's language and his thoughts shut up about Rhodey and the prototype for his father for a bit.

Time flew until it was ten o’clock and the librarian kicked him out. He didn’t want to go back to the dorm just yet, though.

Tony went a few blocks away to the MIT lab, the student workspace for projects. He followed the blueprints Obie had sent him, working away until he was the last person left in the lab and the adult supervisor left once Tony promised that he would double check the machines and turn off the lights. They were surprisingly flexible, the supervisors. Tony guessed that they all were tired of just sitting in the corner, making sure nobody exploded anything and would do anything to leave early.

He was almost done with the interior, and when he looked back up at the clock, he froze. It was four in the morning.

_Shit._

Running around like a chicken with its head cut off, he checked that everything was off, put his name on his project with a yellow sticky note, turned off the lights, and sprinted back to his dorm. He had to be up by seven (if he wanted breakfast) to get to his morning class, and as much as he would rather pull an all-nighter to keep working, he couldn’t afford to fall asleep in class. 

As quietly as he could, Tony unlocked the door to his dorm, stripped himself down to his boxers, and made a beeline for his bed. He closed his eyes and prayed that sleep came quickly, but knowing his usual sleeping habits, it would still take a while. It took at least an hour for his body to finally realize that it was allowed to sleep most nights, and he had a feeling that tonight would be no different.

“You okay?” Rhodey asked out of the blue.

He woke Rhodey up. _Dammit._ Another thing for him to feel guilty about.

“Mhm.”

“I’m sorry for getting mad at you.”

“Me too.”

Rhodey rolled over, facing away from him. Tony buried his face in his pillow and screwed his eyes shut, silent frustration pouring off of him. He was mad at himself for being petty and accidentally working until four, he was mad at himself for getting mad at Rhodey, and he was mad at himself for being mad because that meant that he would have trouble turning his mind off to go to sleep.

Stress was getting to him.

\--

“What do you mean.”

“I mean, you can’t build an explosive in the lab, much less an experimental prototype,” the supervisor said through the phone.

“I know what I’m doing! Do you think I really would just put the entire student body in danger?” Tony said, getting up to pace around the dorm room. He was doing a lot of that lately.

“Honestly, you’ve exploded things that I never would have thought _could_ explode. You have a knack for setting things on fire.”

“I’m careful!”

“I know you are. But I also have to keep my job. I’m sorry,” the supervisor apologized. 

“Fine. Fine. I’ll be back later to dismantle it,” Tony huffed. He hung up, rubbing his temples. He had a headache forming and it was only ten in the morning.

Of course, of course. It was all so typical. He finally had a chance to prove himself to his father, finally had a chance to show him what he was made of, and it got taken away. His entire brain felt sour and angry, his skin too tight for his body, and he felt the unexplainable need to punch a wall or some other solid surface. He punched his mattress instead, relieving maybe a sixteenth of the stress coursing through his veins, and sighed heavily. 

He sat down again at his desk, dialing Obie. Dread weighed down on his shoulders.

“Obadiah Stane speaking.”

“Hi. It’s Tony.”

“Tony! My boy. What’s up?” Obie was too damn cheerful for his mood right now and it made him angrier.

“They won’t let me build the missile in the lab,” Tony breathed out.

“Oh. Well, that complicates a few things, doesn’t it?” Obie laughed, and Tony’s blood boiled.

“Just letting you know. Get someone else to do it,” he said through gritted teeth.

“I’m not letting you off the hook that easily. You still have to send me improvements,” Obie said, his voice lowering.

“I can’t do it without the physical model!” Tony argued, hitting the surface of the desk with his fist.

“I’m not shipping explosives over FedEx.”

“Okay. Fine then. I’ll build it in my room,” Tony snarled, slamming his flip phone shut. The call disconnected.

Rhodey decided that right then was a good time to come back from his lecture, and Tony groaned internally when he heard the keys in the lock. This would not be a good conversation. He just wanted to be alone, and Rhodey was sure to call him out on his bad mood, like he had been doing over the past two days. The thought alone made him even more annoyed at the world, and he had had enough of talking for like, the next five years. He put his face on the desk, staring down at his feet.

“Hey Tones,” Rhodey said cheerfully, and just his mood made Tony angry. In a completely irrational way, Tony was mad that Rhodey was happy. He didn’t deserve to be happy. If Tony wasn’t happy, then the rest of the world couldn’t be.

“Hey.”

Rhodey was quiet for a second, before getting all defensive. “What’s up with you?”

“All I said was hey.” Tony lifted his head from the desk to glare at him.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t stop you from projecting all of your teenage angst into that word.” Rhodey rolled his eyes, his expression all sour. _Good._

“Whatever.” Tony turned away.

“You finally going through puberty or something?”

Tony huffed, grabbed his jacket resting on his bed, and slammed the door on his way out.

He had to calm down. He knew that. He knew he was being completely and utterly dramatic, but heck, he deserved to. All these years of putting on a happy face for the press and his parents; he wanted to talk back. He wanted to use his words instead of just smiling and nodding. And if that meant losing his friendship with Rhodey, then so be it.

_Wait, no_. Tony cursed himself. Now he was going too far. Rhodey was a blessing and a half and he really owed him an apology, but Tony was _not_ about to crawl back to his dorm with a metaphorical tail between his legs. If he was going to be stubborn, he was gonna go full-out. He liked his pride intact, thank you very much.

Tony stomped to the library instead, logging onto the computer and trying to hypothetically improve the missile using the given information, but it just wasn’t working for him. It frustrated him beyond belief that his brain wasn’t cooperating with him, and his hands really wanted to build it, wanted to touch it. It was no use, but he kept trying, until his leg bounced and his fingers drummed and his pen clicked over and over and it was ten o’clock and time to go.

Tony angrily balled up the useless calculations and threw it in the recycling bin on his way out. The whole situation just sucked ass.

While he walked back to his hall, he had an idea. He’d just build it in his _dorm_. There should be enough room under his bed to hide it, and even if there wasn’t, he could always buy supports to raise it. He’d have to be very careful to not explode anything, but it would still have to be a pretty large impact to set anything off.

Tony felt better, the bad mood disappearing quickly and his posture straightening. He dropped by the lab to dismantle his project, and snuck a few materials that he’d need into his pockets. He felt lighter. Everything felt doable. Maybe even apologizing to Rhodey was in the realm of possibility, and his steps weren’t so heavy as he walked back.

But building it in the dorm would mean risking expulsion, with or without the Stark last name and money. He’d been in trouble before, mostly for drugs and shit and mouthing off to teachers, but he’d never gone so far as to put others in danger. That just wasn’t his brand. And if he got expelled, then he’d never hear the end of it from Howard, he’d never hear the end of it from Rhodey.

Maybe he’d never hear from Rhodey again, actually. Their relationship was on thin ice again, all this fighting going on, and maybe getting expelled would finally push him over the edge. Tony wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he called Rhodey and found that he was just a blocked number on his phone. Rhodey was his life line, the reason he woke up every morning, and a good source of validation; if Rhodey thought that Tony wasn’t worth it, then maybe he really wasn’t. He’d probably kill himself then.

_That escalated quickly_ , Tony thought to himself. He wanted a hug.

The lights were off in the dorm, and Tony pulled off his jacket with the stolen materials in its pockets and pushed it under his bed. Rhodey was lying in bed, his head propped up on his elbow as he watched Tony take off his shirt and brushed his teeth in just his sweatpants, the light from the washroom illuminating his face. Tony couldn’t tell if he was still mad. He hoped he wasn’t, but Rhodey was very good at making his face blank when he wanted to.

If Rhodey was surprised that Tony walked over to him and laid down beside him, he didn’t say. He just hugged him without question, and Tony rested his head on Rhodey’s shoulder, breathing it in while he still could. His heart felt heavy, and what was with him and the mood swings lately? He went from absolutely seething, to fine, to sad in the span of an hour.

“You okay?” Rhodey asked softly, and Tony knew that he was forgiven.

“I’m sorry,” he said anyway, just to make it official.

“I know. You okay, though?”

“Yeah.”

Rhodey didn’t press. Tony gave himself another minute before pulling away and retreating to his own bed, curling up under his covers. As much as he’d love to spend the night hugging Rhodey, the twin beds were smaller than they looked, especially when Tony rolled around in his sleep. He felt cold and he hugged himself to make up for the loss of touch.

He’d probably be fine, right? The RA’s only gave a quick sweep of the room, they never looked under the beds.

He’d be _fine._

\--

“Uh, what?”

“Gah! Don’t do that to me!” Tony stood up quickly, shoving his materials under his raised bed. The supports were actually blocks of wood that Tony had found, but they served their purpose just fine.

“Tony?”

“Don’t look too hard. You don’t see anything.” Tony kicked the last bit of metal back under his bed hastily.

“What are you building?” Rhodey stepped closer.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” Tony confirmed.

Rhodey sighed, rubbing his temples and sitting on his bed. “You’re insanely difficult.”

The words stung more than they should but Tony shook them off. He’d have time to dwell on them later, but right now his pulse was pounding too fast in his ears and his hands were shaking because if Rhodey _told_ , then he’d be dead. Both metaphorically and physically.

He’d been going strong for two days straight, building the prototype every free moment he got, and he was always careful to know where Rhodey was at _all times_. Except not this time. Because Rhodey had said that he was going for lunch but _came back_ , effectively busting Tony and he could basically ruin his whole life now and while many people had that power, this was a whole new level. There were very few people whose opinions mattered to Tony, and Rhodey’s was one of them.

Rhodey glanced up at him and Tony flashed him a reassuring smile that was way too forced, his hands tight by his sides and tension making his shoulders rise to his ears. He was afraid to move, his feet felt glued to the spot and he felt kind of faint, if he was honest to himself. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken that adderall that he found after his morning class to help with his energy levels. It always suppressed his appetite and made him jumpy, and combined with the lack of sleep over the past few days, he felt borderline nauseous.

“You look like you’re having a heart attack,” Rhodey deadpanned from his spot on the bed.

“Do I?” Tony laughed nervously, looking everywhere except at Rhodey’s face.

“Alright. Cut the bullshit.” Rhodey punctuated his words by hitting his thighs and standing up. “What are you hiding?”

“You said you were going to lunch?” Tony still hadn’t moved, and he tried to will his shoulders to relax, but to no avail.

“Yeah, and I came back?” Rhodey said, walking over to Tony. He flinched and backed away, finally getting his feet unstuck from the floor.

“Usually you’re at least an hour?” Tony squeaked.

“Why are you saying everything like it’s a question?” Rhodey asked. “You’re shaking. What the heck.”

“Am I? Didn’t notice?” Tony smiled at him, giving a thumbs up. He felt stupid.

“Let’s see.” Rhodey dropped to his knees and began pulling things out from under Tony’s bed, and Tony sprung to action, tackling Rhodey like he was a football player and not a five-foot six and 130 pound sixteen year-old student.

“Don’t look,” he said, once Rhodey was safely on the ground beside him. 

“Tony, what the _fuck_ are you hiding from me?” Rhodey hissed, getting back up. 

“No.” Tony sprawled on top of Rhodey to keep him from standing up.

Rhodey stilled, silent for a second. “Tony, you’re actually, like- you’re shaking. I can feel you shaking.”

“I’m not.”

“Tony, literally shut up.” Rhodey wrapped his arms around Tony rather awkwardly, considering they were both lying on the ground. He lowered his voice, making his tone gentle. “Whatever it is, I’m not going to get mad.” 

“You have to absolutely promise to not tell _anyone_ ,” Tony said, his voice muffled by Rhodey’s shirt.

“I absolutely promise to not tell anyone,” Rhodey swore.

“Are you _sure_ ,” Tony pressed.

“Yes, I’m sure.” Rhodey rolled his eyes.

“Okay. Okay. Okay,” Tony repeated, slowly getting off of Rhodey. “Okay.”

Rhodey sat up while Tony pulled the unfinished missile out from under his bed, ignoring how his hands visibly shook. He gripped the edges harder to still them.

“I’m building a missile,” he said once everything was unearthed, hiding his hands in his armpits.

“Like, like a bomb?” Rhodey raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Please please _please_ don’t tell anyone. I don’t wanna get expelled,” Tony begged, quickly putting everything back in hiding.

“That’s illegal in so many ways.” Rhodey rubbed his hand over his face like he was tired of putting up with Tony’s shit. He probably was.

“I need to. They won’t let me build it in the lab,” Tony explained, his tone of voice going desperate. “ _Please._ ”

“You’re not… planting a bomb anywhere, are you?” Rhodey asked with uncertainty.

“God. No. This is SI stuff. I build it, note improvements, then I dismantle it,” Tony got out in a single breath. “Don’t tell. Please.”

“I’m gonna trust you to not completely obliterate our hall, okay? And if you get caught, do _not_ mention my name. I know nothing about this,” Rhodey laid out the terms.

“Yeah. You keep quiet too.” Tony nodded about a bajillion times.

“Deal?”

“Deal.”

And Tony could breathe. He fell back against the wall, squeezing his shaky hands between his knees. Rhodey joined him, looking over his frame questionably, like he was trying to read him. Tony felt like he was being x-rayed whenever Rhodey did that, and it happened more than Tony would like to admit.

“Why are they getting a kid to do this anyway?” Rhodey asked finally.

“Smarter than half of ’em.”

Rhodey laughed, and Tony’s head fell on his shoulder. He smiled. This could work.

Tony openly worked on it once Rhodey knew, but still kept it under his bed. The RA’s couldn’t know. He still held his breath whenever one of them knocked on the door for whatever reason, and Rhodey coming in unannounced made his heart jump in his throat. The secret made him jittery, and Rhodey frequently had to ask him to stop clicking his pen while he worked. He needed to _move._

He had a sandwich bag of Vicodin calling his name, and when he took a pill, his brain finally calmed down enough for him to _work_. His paper on mathematical knots was done to a degree, he could study without having to bounce his leg and tap his fingers, and to be honest, the relaxing feeling in the back of his head threatening to pull him under felt nice.

Cocaine would’ve been preferable to help him concentrate, but he had to work with what he had. He could find some later, money could get him anything so long as he had a lot. Adderall just made him jumpy, so he kept some in his bag for purely emergency purposes, such as an all nighter, or when he really, really needed something.

There were some things that Rhodey didn’t have to know.

The days went by, and he fell asleep in lectures, had to scramble to find someone who would lend their notes. He was falling behind in his Chem class, the numbers and formulas going in one ear and out the other. His brain felt like it was cramping up half the time, and as everything piled up above his ears, it just got harder. The only classes he legitimately enjoyed were his shop class and computer science class, because he was a natural when it came to machinery, and coding was just… logic.

There were no maybe’s in code. Only human error. Tony _never_ made an error. He liked that.

Working on a computer or with his hands calmed him better than any drug could. His vision would tunnel and time would mean nothing while he worked, the world passing by. When his brain was on fire and shooting a million neurons at once and reminding him about the _highly illegal activity_ in his dorm and when Rhodey was closely supervising or he didn’t have any pills on him, he’d work to shut up the voices screaming at him. But convenience made the drugs his first choice.

It was fine. He’d stop later. But things were piling up on his shoulders and he really needed a little something-something to help him get through it.

\--

“I’m outside your hall.”

“Why are you here?” Tony blanked.

“To check on your progress with the missile prototype,” came Howard’s voice through the phone.

“I’m not done it yet,” Tony said.

“What do you mean you’re not done? C’mon, let’s go to the MIT lab. I think my name is still scratched in one of the tables there.”

“It’s in my room.”

“The missile?” Howard asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why do you have an explosive in your room? Are you stupid?” Howard yelled, and Tony cringed, praying that nobody was around to hear the whole explosive-in-room spiel.

“They wouldn’t let me build it in the lab,” he explained.

“That doesn’t mean you put the entire engineering hall population at risk!” 

“It’s safe. I’m careful. I know what I’m doing.” Tony was beginning to get annoyed instead of scared now. 

“Just get down here.”

Tony hung up and swallowed harshly, leaving his dorm and walking quickly down the stairs. He didn’t want to do this. He hated when Howard showed up unannounced, he hated Howard in general; and along with the billion other things he had to do, Tony was not having it.

He discreetly popped a little white pill in his mouth once he was alone in the stairway. He’d need it.

“Hey,” he greeted his father.

“Hello to you too. Let’s go,” Howard said hastily.

Tony brought his father up to his dorm room, thankful that Rhodey was at a lecture. He pulled the prototype out from under his bed, and his father took two seconds to look over it before laughing without any humour. A humiliating laugh. A laugh just to show that he did not find it at all funny.

“What?” Tony asked, his face heating up.

“You have it all backwards. That’s supposed to be here,” Howard pointed to a section inside the casing. ”It’s useless.”

“What? But-”

“Do you need glasses, boy?” Howard said angrily, putting a hand on Tony’s shoulder and shaking it. 

Tony looked at the blueprint and at the prototype, swallowing a retort, not daring to shove Howard’s hand off of him. Of course, he had put the contents in backwards and had already screwed on the exterior and hooked everything up. The balance was all off. He’d have to spend hours dismantling everything carefully and putting things back in, but it could be done. It could be worse. The only thing that burned was that Howard found him ridiculous.

He must’ve been half-asleep when he’d done it. God knows he’d only been getting an average of three hours a night, if any.

“I’ll fix it,” Tony said defiantly, finally shrugging his hand off his shoulder.

“Forget about it. No use. Looks like I’ll have to do it myself,” Howard spat.

“I’ll fix it!” Tony repeated, urgency in his voice. 

“What part of forget about it do you not understand?” Howard was two inches from his face, and Tony blinked.

His father was mad. Of course. When was he not? At least this close Tony could smell that he was sober this time. Maybe that was for the better, maybe that was for the worse.

“Obie gave me the job. I’ll do it.” Tony said calmly even though he really wanted to punch his father six ways to Sunday.

“ _Obadiah_ was wrong.” Howard straightened up. “He begged me to let you have a chance to prove yourself, you know? Give the kid a chance, he said. You’d be surprised.”

His father lit a cigarette and Tony didn’t say anything about the no-smoking rule. He felt sick.

“I gave in. Told him to give you the project. I should’ve known you were gonna mess it up.”

“I told you, I can fix it!” Tony shouted.

“I’m talking, boy!” Howard yelled, back in Tony’s face.

Tony refused to back up, but maybe he flinched a bit. He clenched his jaw, steeling himself. If this was how it was going to go down, then so be it.

“You gonna hit me?” Tony asked with a straight face, not about to show he was scared.

“I oughta.” Howard took a huff of his cigarette, still inches from his son’s face.

“My roommate’s lecture ended a few minutes ago. He’ll be here soon.” It was a lie. There was still a good fifteen minutes to go, but Howard didn’t need to know.

“Ah yes, James Rhodes. Does he know you were risking his life by building this?” he asked, as if he already knew the answer.

“He does, actually.”

“Huh. Maybe he’s not as smart as I thought he was.”

Tony was not about to let that slide, but he also was not about to talk about Rhodey like that without him present. He steered the conversation away. “Obie told me to build it. He told me that not having lab space was not an excuse.”

“As _Obadiah_ should. Stop with the nickname already.”

“I’m getting mixed messages about whether you wanted me to build this or not.” he said without emotion.

“You have to use your last name!” Howard grabbed the collar of Tony’s shirt, and Tony flinched again involuntarily. “You are a _Stark_. You say my name and the lab’s yours. Do you know how much money I give them each year?”

“I don’t want rich privilege. And that makes me look like a dick,” Tony dared say.

“Are you calling me a dick? Your own father?” He shook his fist holding Tony’s shirt..

“You said it, not me.”

Howard raised his hand and Tony braced for impact by making himself as still as possible, not showing any pain, but none came. Howard was still holding him with the hand holding the cigarette up in the air, breathing heavily down at him. “You take that back”

Tony just looked at him.

“You’re not invincible, Anthony.”

“You wouldn’t dare kill me,” Tony retorted.

“You’re a mistake.” Howard dropped his raised hand and let go of Tony’s shirt. He smoothed out his own suit jacket, as if preparing to leave, but Tony wasn’t gonna let _him_ have the last word.

“Should’ve worn the condom, right? How drunk were you the night I was conceived?” 

Howard shoved Tony back against the wall, pinning his shoulders there with his hands. The cigarette he held burned through the shirt fabric, burning into Tony’s skin and it took all he could to not wince at the sharp pain. He stared unblinkingly into his father’s eyes, trying not to let them water.

“You really know how to get me pissed off.” Howard sneered.

“What else are sons for?”

Howard leaned closer, and Tony could smell the gross cigarette breath. “I told Maria to abort you,” he hissed. “But she said, we need an heir anyway, let’s see how this plays out. And when you were little, I thought that maybe it would actually work.”

“You never loved me,” Tony pointed out. It wasn’t news to him.

“You’re right. But I thought we could at least live together. But you were like your mother, so desperate for attention-”

“Don’t talk about mom like that,” Tony interrupted him sharply.

“The adult is talking!” Howard shouted, getting spit on Tony’s face.

That stupid line. It made Tony’s hands shake and he grit his teeth. Howard threw those words around like being an adult meant that he was above him, like he knew _so much more_ than Tony. He was his superior just because he was older, and Tony hated when people assumed less of him just because he was still a teenager.

“ _I have no idea why_ she married you. She deserves so much more than you.” Tony said with venom, seeing red.

“ _I have no idea why_ I decided to become a father in the first place!” Howard spat. The cigarette burnt out. He shook Tony’s shoulders again just to show that he could, and Tony felt his skull rattle.

A sense of déjà vu hit him and he had a vague memory of Jarvis saying something about shaken-baby syndrome when he was younger. But of course Howard didn’t care. Maybe that was why he was so messed up in the head, maybe it all came down to Howard Stark and his shit excuse for parenting skills.

“When are you going to hit me?” Tony asked. He just wanted to get it over with.

“When did you get so annoying? I missed when you were scared of me. Hid in the closets and with Jarvis. Stayed out of my way,” Howard drew on.

“You came here. I didn’t ask you to.”

“Well it’s a good thing I did. You would’ve gotten the measurements all wrong. I’m saving you a lot of time right now,” he pointed out.

“I can fix it. If you would just listen to me-” Tony began, struggling to escape his grip.

“You don’t get to fix it!” Howard seethed, pushing Tony harder into the wall, not giving him any room. “Obadiah was wrong. You’ll never amount to anything!”

“You think that’ll hurt me? You think that will do anything to deflate my ego? I built an entire car engine when I was six, I know my worth!” Tony shouted back, not caring about steeling himself anymore.

“Yeah, and I’m in charge of a major company, boy! Your accomplishments are minor compared to mine! I built this from the ground up! Did you help defeat the nazis? Did you make captain America? Did you work on Fat Man and Little Boy and save all of America? Did you?” He shook Tony again to prove the point.

“Always back to the war. Was that the best thing you ever did? Was that your peak?” he seethed, his voice shaking as his head hit the wall from Howard’s movement.

“Captain America was my greatest creation!”

“The son you wished you had! I know!”

Howard pulled him away with so much force that he stumbled into the missile, barely missing it and having to avoid kicking it by jumping in the air. If that thing went off, then they were both done for.

“Watch it!” he warned.

“That piece of shit wouldn’t explode if I covered it in kerosene and threw a match on it! Just wait!” Howard grinned maniacally.

And he pushed Tony onto the machinery, the metal folding into itself and sharp edges cutting Tony’s exposed skin. Tony closed his eyes, expecting an explosion, immediate death, the works, but nothing happened. A sinking feeling tugged on his heart when he realized that he really had failed. It wasn’t just all backwards; it was completely useless.

Howard picked Tony up by the collar again, hauling him to his feet. “Right again, aren’t I? You can’t build anything to save your life.”

“I don’t want to build weapons anyway. Artificial Intelligence is what I’m going to do,” Tony decided. He was better at them anyway.

“Well, doesn’t it suck that SI is a weapon manufacturer?” Howard hissed.

“I will _never_ work for you or your _stupid_ company!” Tony screamed in anger and teenage defiance.

Howard pushed Tony again at an angle, and the side of his face hit the corner of his desk as he went down. He groaned automatically, curling into himself as the injury throbbed and burned. He stayed on all fours for a second, holding the left side of his face as his eyes teared up and made everything worse.

“You hurt?”

Tony shook his head, quickly getting to his feet. The vision in his left eye was swimming and the ground felt tilted. He would’ve pitched to the side if he hadn’t been leaning against the desk for support anyway. 

“Then I didn’t push you hard enough.” Howard moved closer, his hand outstretched and making connection with Tony’s neck, pinning him to the wall.

Tony choked, his eyes going wide as he tried to kick out, but Howard held firm. He brought his hands up and tried to pry his fingers away from his neck, but he was just too strong and too old and _too powerful_. He craned his neck in every which way to find an angle he could get air in. He couldn’t breathe.

“Does it hurt?” Howard asked, his mouth up in Tony’s ear.

Tony shook his head minutely, screwing up his face as he tried to get in a breath.

“Does it hurt?!”

“No!” he gasped out, regretting opening his mouth. That took air. He didn’t have air.

Howard pressed harder and Tony made another choking noise, straining even harder to get out.

“Does it hurt?!”

Tony squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth and trying with all of his might to pull his father’s fingers away from his neck. 

“ _Does it hurt?!”_

Tony kicked his legs out. He made connection with a shin but nothing happened. Howard was just too strong.

_“Tell me and I’ll let go!”_

“No!” Tony yelled.

Howard pressed harder and Tony saw stars. Tears of effort leaked out of his eyes. He needed air. Had fifteen minutes passed since Howard had come over? He needed Rhodey to come back like, five minutes ago, and prayed that he was seconds away from bursting through the door, but the seconds trickled on and Tony was getting more light headed with every count and this was _not happening._

“Yes,” he choked out finally once bright lights swam in his vision, expecting Howard to hold on longer, but he dropped him like he was hot metal.

“Now you know what it felt like for me the day you were born.”

Tony gasped for air, curled up against the desk leg, catching his breath. The door slammed and Howard had left, seeing himself out. Tony curled up in a ball, breathing in glorious, glorious oxygen and nitrogen and carbon dioxide and whatever other gases that air consisted of, the coolness of the fluid reawakening him, and he would never ever ever take breathing for granted ever again. Ever.

His throat _burned_. It burned more than the cigarette burn on his shoulder, which was terribly ironic. His eye too, his left eye felt heavy and his vision was cloudy and wet but it could just be because he was crying, and whether the crying came from the physical pain or the berating of his father, he didn’t know. He gingerly touched the area and it felt puffy, and when he brought his hand away, a mixture of tears and blood dripped down his fingers. He wiped his hand on his shirt and just breathed a little more, just because he could. _He could breathe._

He glanced at the useless missile, his vision blurry and fuzzy around the edges. Howard was right. He couldn’t build for shit. The thought brought on a fresh wave of tears and he buried his face in his arms, letting himself wallow in self-pity before getting down to business. Rhodey would be back soon.

He went to the bathroom once his legs finally felt like legs and not like jello, even though he leaned heavily on every surface he could find. He locked the door and looked in the mirror, preparing himself for disgust. A red handprint was clear on his neck, bruising a bit already. His skin had broken under his left eye, fluid gathering there, and it was swollen almost completely shut. He turned around and found that he had scratches from falling into the metal on the back of his arms, but at least they weren’t bleeding. 

He slid down the wall opposite the toilet, breathing some more. It still felt like there was a hand gripping his neck, squeezing. Bile rose in his throat and he spat in the toilet.

Howard wouldn’t intentionally kill him, but he could accidentally. 

He swore when he heard the knock on the washroom door. “Tony?”

“Yeah?” His voice sounded like he was a fifty-year old smoker. The burn on his shoulder stung at that thought and he rubbed at it.

“Your… _thing_ is broken.”

_Shit._ He should’ve cleaned it up. What if it had been an RA who came in? “I know.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I fell on it,” Tony elaborated.

“Oh?”

“Do me a favour and pass me a sweatshirt?” Tony stood up, using the sink for support. 

A second passed before Rhodey knocked on the door again. “Open up.”

“Thanks.” Tony opened the door just enough for Rhodey to hand him the sweater, and when Rhodey tried to open the door all the way, he quickly closed it by leaning all of his weight on it. He closed his eyes, his world going sideways with the effort.

The need to vomit was suddenly overwhelming, his aching body not appreciating movement. He fell on his knees in front of the toilet bowl, head spinning and his body going all hot and all cold at once. He gagged a bit, and his throat burned, throbbed in protest. He made a little noise of pain mixed with another gag which hurt even more and it echoed around the tiled walls. He grimaced and squeezed his hands into fists so tight that his fingernails left little half-moons in the flesh of his palm.

“Tony? You okay?” Rhodey’s voice called out, knocking twice on the door again.

Tony didn’t trust his stomach to let him speak immediately, so he didn’t even try. He swallowed harshly, managing to get himself under control, an arm wrapped around his stomach. He breathed for a few seconds, his hands shaking less and less with every breath, before standing up once his stomach stopped doing cartwheels in his chest and the bile stopped rising dangerously in his throat. 

“I’m good,” Tony called back, once he felt comfortable enough opening his mouth.

He took off his collared shirt, admired the burn on his shoulder for a second, then pulled on the hoodie. His favourite, grey MIT hoodie, with the maroon letters. He brushed his hair down a bit to cover the bruise on his face and pulled his hood up to keep his neck hidden, tying the strings together under his chin for extra coverage. He unlocked the door and kept his head down, sitting at his desk and opening his math binder, pretending to do his work. He felt Rhodey’s gaze burn into him.

“Did you throw up?” he asked finally.

“No.” 

Silence. Tony would kill for a Vicodin right now, not just for the relaxant, but for the pain. He couldn’t reach into his suitcase while Rhodey was in the room, though.

“Because if you did, you’re gonna have to clean the toilet.”

“I didn’t, Rhodes,” Tony said, annoyed. Of course Rhodey the emetophobe would be more focused on that.

“Not Rhodey anymore?” he asked, noticing the change in nickname.

Tony didn’t say anything, and Rhodey decided to change his interrogation subject.

“You gonna tell me _why_ it’s broken?” Rhodey referred to the crumpled missile prototype on the ground.

“I fell on it. I told you.” Tony tried to keep his voice level. He cleared his throat painfully.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’m not a liar.” He felt anger rise in him, and he really did not want to fight anymore, but telling Rhodey about his father was out of the question.

“Yeah, you are.”

“I’m not!” Tony pressed. He wasn’t completely lying, anyway.

“You told me you’d be careful. And then you go and _fall_ on it? And you expect me to believe that?” Rhodey asked incredulously.

“Do you not trust me?” It was a low blow, and Tony wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer, but Rhodey had no trouble finding the words.

“It’s hard to! You lied about building it, you’re breaking a thousand rules, it smells like cigarette smoke in here and you sound like a heavy smoker. You’re always so pissy now, too.”

“I’m not pissy.” The second it left his mouth, Tony knew it wasn’t going to help his point.

“Listen to yourself!”

“It’s none of your business!” Tony slammed his pen down and was about to turn around when he remembered his bruise, and he quickly aborted the movement.

“You’re hiding something else,” Rhodey pointed out.

“Like what? I tell you everything!” Tony said, his voice raising an octave.

“I can’t tell you what it is if you don’t tell me! That’s like the fundamentals of a secret!” Rhodey matched his tone.

“Can’t you just let me be _pissy_ in peace, then?” Tony said angrily, using Rhodey’s words.

“Not when it feels like the elephant in the room! And look at me when you yell at me!”

“I don’t have to look at you.”

“Fine. Be that way. But you know I’m gonna have to report you for smoking in our room. I can’t stand it.” Rhodey threw his hands up as if to signal the end of the conversation.

“I wasn’t smoking!” Tony yelled. His hands went through his hair and he pulled hard in frustration.

“Then your new cologne smells terrible!”

“That’s a fucking lame joke,” he deadpanned. 

“We breaking out the curse words now? All grown up?” Rhodey glared at him and Tony could feel it on his back. 

“You’re so fucking annoying,” Tony spat.

“You’re being the child, here. I’m just tryna follow the dorm rules,” Rhodey said defensively.

“Can you just let me work?” Tony tried a different approach. Whatever was code for _leave me alone._

“Face me and I’ll think about it.”

“I’m not looking at you.”

“Why, you got a hole in your neck so you can breathe, now? A stoma? You smoke that much?” Rhodey retorted. 

“Forget it. I’m going to the lab.” Tony gave up, standing up and grabbing his school bag.

“Good. Stay the night.”

“Maybe I will.”

Tony left after shoving as much as he could of the broken missile into his bag and pushing what he couldn’t back under the bed. He stormed out, keeping his head down and kicking at rocks in his path like they posed a threat in his life. He was seeing red and breathing heavily, which sucked because it made his throat sting and his neck throb and the strap of his bag was digging into the burn on his shoulder. His left eye was still blurry and puffed up, the skin there feeling tight. He felt beat-up. He was beat-up.

He needed a distraction. He couldn’t dwell on his father beating the fuck-up out of him, because then he’d spiral and it wasn’t even like he could spiral in peace because he couldn’t even return to his dorm and he was so close to the edge even now. He couldn’t think. He needed to do something _right now_ , to keep everything at bay. He was falling apart.

But he wouldn’t break. Not yet. No time to break down. He had his computer science program to finish, and once he was done putting the scrap materials away at the lab, he went to the library and plugged his USB into one of the computers. He fished around in his bag for _something_ , he always kept a stash in there, and pulled out an adderall tablet. He’d make it work. Any state of mind was better than this one.

He kept working until it was time to leave, and the librarians had just begun ushering kids out. Tony grabbed his stuff and vaulted behind one of the couches in between bookshelves and hid until the lights turned off and everyone left, then curled up on the couch cushions and slept. It was better than facing Rhodey and getting all the bruises exposed, anyway. The adderall crash helped him sleep hard.

The next morning, his watch went off at seven and he woke up groggily from a dreamless sleep, a bit disoriented. His back and neck hurt from the awkward angle he was forced to spend the night in and it took him a solid minute to figure out where he was, and why he was here. His heart fell when he remembered the fight with Rhodey and the whole his-dad-was-a-fucking-abuser thing that was going on. He sat up to gather himself for a bit, a hand rubbing his tender and bruised neck. This was not a good way to wake up.

He checked his timetable and because this lecture hall was so far away from the library, he would have to do without breakfast. He snuck out through a window and went to the hall just in time. His brain was foggy while he was taking notes and he didn’t have a _clue_ about what he was writing down, it was just unrelated words at that point. He took another pill in the pretense of dropping his pen to try to clear his head, but to no avail.

He didn’t eat lunch either, as the adderall suppressed his appetite. Obie had called too, which just made him nauseous.

“How did you screw things up with your dad so badly? He was screaming at me the entire drive back.”

“The usual.” Tony kicked at a stone. He was on his way to the dorm, praying that Rhodey was still out for lunch.

“I don’t think so.”

“I messed it up. What more is there to say.”

“You never mess up.”

Tony sighed, closing his eyes. “I had other things to do. I was building it in my dorm room, which isn’t exactly the most resourceful or biggest place on campus.”

“That’s a lame excuse.”

“I’m not really in the mood to be called a mistake again, if you don’t mind,” he said sourly.

“He called you a mistake?”

“Among other things. This isn’t news to you, Obie.”

“I’ll have a talk with him.”

“Don’t. I’ll hear it later if you do.”

“He can’t just-”

“He’s called me worse. He’s done worse. I’ll manage.” Tony waved it off.

There was a pause on the other end, like Obie was trying to figure out what to say. “He loves you.”

“That’s a laugh.”

“He just… has a hard time showing it.”

“Sure.” He hung up. Obie didn’t call back, and Tony pocketed his phone, in a bad mood. 

He was always in a bad mood. It was a cycle, he found; he would be in a bad mood for the sole reason that he was in a bad mood and then it would just keep going.

He made it to his (thankfully empty) dorm room, and dropped everything from his morning class on his desk to try to make sense of later. He picked up his binder for his math class. They would be getting the marks for the paper today, and dread weighed heavy on Tony’s shoulders.

“Who’d you piss off?” Rhodey asked, showing up to pick up his things for his afternoon classes as well.

“What?” Tony asked, forgetting that he was supposed to be hiding his face.

“The black eye.”

Tony turned away, going red. “No one. I fell.”

“You’ve been falling a lot recently,” Rhodey pointed out. He was onto him. 

“Yeah, and it’s none of your business, so fuck off.” He pushed past Rhodey to get to the door. 

“With pleasure.” He stepped aside so Tony could leave.

He got his report back from math. A forty-five. He knew better than to ask his professor to round it, and everything just felt five million times heavier than it had earlier. Tony had never failed something before, and while there have been near-misses, this was a whole new level of disappointment. 

He stared down at the paper the entire lecture, not even caring that he was missing information that would probably be crucial for his next assignment. He was tired. He had no pills left in his school bag. Tony held his head in his hands, trying not to let the tears drip onto the Paper of Disappointment and Failure. The lump in his throat just never went away.

His next class was with Rhodey, and he kept his head down the whole time students were filing in, but Rhodey didn’t even sit beside him like usual. He didn’t even look in his direction. Whatever. That just meant that he could actually concentrate, even though his head was so heavy and his eyes were slipping closed and he felt all floaty and warm in his sweater...

He fell asleep. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to ask Rhodey for notes, like he usually did. He approached the student in front of him and traded phone numbers for when he could go over and copy her notes, but of course now it was just another thing that Tony had to catch up on. He felt downright miserable, too miserable to even process the fact that he just got a girl’s number.

“Mr Stark? I would like to speak to you, please.”

Tony paused on his walk out the door, turning around to face his professor. They both waited awkwardly while everybody left, and Tony risked a glance over at Rhodey only to see that he had his eyes determinedly in the other direction. Rhodey wanted absolutely _nothing_ to do with him. The lump in his throat grew two sizes and he struggled to swallow around it.

He wanted to cry.

“I… what happened to your eye?” His professor squinted at his face, pushing her glasses down her nose to get a better look. Tony hadn’t so much as glanced in a mirror recently, but he knew the couple days after were usually the worst when it came to looks.

“I hit it on the corner of a door,” Tony lied easily. This wasn’t his first rodeo.

“Anyway. Mr Stark. In this class we have rules, and I thought I made it clear at the very beginning of the semester that sleeping in class would not be tolerated. Therefore, I-”

“Why do you care?” Tony asked, making his face blank.

She blinked at him.

“You get paid the same whether I show up or not. You could teach to a single person and still get paid the same amount as you would to a class of hundreds. Why do you care if I sleep in class?” he elaborated, crossing an invisible line.

“ _Someone_ woke up on the wrong side of the bed today,” she began, appalled, but Tony stopped her.

“Actually, I slept on a couch.”

“ _Well_ then.” She looked at him weirdly.

Tony cringed at his brain being too slow to process that he was oversharing.

“I, for one, don’t teach for the money. I teach to be a teacher, a professor. However, as a Stark, I don’t expect you to understand that,” she said, her words hitting Tony where it hurt. “Money wasn’t just thrown at me like it is for you, young man. I had to earn it.”

“Yeah, I already had this lecture from my father about a million times, so can I-”

“You are not dismissed.”

“Ma’am, I really need to go.”

“I’ll remember this. Just because you’re a Stark-”

But Tony was already out the door. That was gonna cost him for sure. He didn’t actually need to leave all that urgently, he didn’t have another class after, but if she kept talking about his last name like that he wasn’t sure if he was going to have a panic attack or just break down crying and he’d rather not take the chance.

He went to his dorm to pick up the remaining pieces he needed to drop off, and brought them straight to the lab to avoid running into Rhodey. He worked on his car engine for his shop class until his hands stopped shaking from the conversation with his professor and he could no longer ignore the hunger that gnawed at him. He glanced up at the clock; there was still half an hour until the dining hall closed. Rhodey was usually one of the earliest ones to arrive there and one of the earliest ones to leave, so he figured he’d be safe. He’d grab something and leave right away, just in case.

It was like reverse-stalking. Tony had to know where Rhodey was at all times to avoid running into him. The realization made Tony’s heart fall just a little bit further.

He walked quickly across the block to the dining hall, but as soon as he pushed open the doors, he made eye contact with Rhodey. He was sitting with some of his other friends, his _better_ friends, and something in Tony’s heart broke. He immediately turned around and went back to the lab, the hunger suddenly gone, turning into nausea and anger and sadness. He looked down at his feet as he walked.

“Woah. You okay man?” a random student had asked after Tony had bumped into him, stuck in his own head.

Tony cursed himself for zoning out and having his head down, but damage was done. He picked up the loose papers that had fallen during the impact and shoved them in the person’s hands.

“You okay?” the guy repeated.

“Fuck off,” Tony snarled, climbing the steps to the lab and disappearing inside.

He worked on his engine until sunrise, until he glanced back up at the clock and realized that he had exactly fifteen minutes to get to his morning class. He had been there all night.

Tony knew he wasn’t going to survive without a little something extra this time. He crushed a little white pill under a sheet of scrap metal, quickly checked to make sure he was alone, then leaned down and snorted the powder. He brushed the excess powder off the metal and ran a hand through his greasy hair before heading out.

He grabbed a coffee and a muffin on his way to his morning class. He shared it with Rhodey, but it was all whatever, because the high was hitting while the professor was talking and handing out a pop quiz, and since Tony hadn’t gone over to see the girl’s notes, he had no idea what was going on. Which was fine. Because he was as high as a kite and floating, and he was so so so above everyone else _including Rhodey_ , and it didn’t matter that Tony hadn’t changed out of his MIT hoodie and motor-oil stained jeans in almost three days. It didn’t matter _so much_ that Tony couldn’t stop thinking about how much his clothes felt like cardboard, that’s how much this shit didn’t matter.

He had to go revisit his engine to calm himself down for a couple hours in between classes. He didn’t eat. He just worked. It was fine. He was fine. He totally wasn’t falling apart at the seams.

His chemistry class was after and somehow even more eventful, even though it only started off with him realizing he forgot his binder and he had to write on loose sheets of paper from the person beside him who sighed every time Tony asked for another one, and it was getting annoying, really. The high had also long worn off and Tony was getting seriously irritated. 

He felt sick. That should’ve been a telltale sign that something bad was going to happen, but he ignored it in favour of learning. He hadn’t slept, he was dizzy from not eating, and he was crashing hard, so it only made sense that as soon as he stood up to leave the classroom his vision swam and the floor rushed up to meet his face. 

He came to after a total of ten seconds of unfeeling darkness, and opened his eyes to see that his professor was kneeling down beside him and checking his pulse in front of everyone. He tried to sit up, the world still tilting dangerously, but the professor pushed him back down.

“Fuck off,” he said on reflex. 

“Fuck off, _sir_.” his professor corrected. At least he had a sense of humour.

“Sir,” Tony nodded, pulling his wrist out of his grip. “Didn’t sleep last night. Stood up too quickly. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure? You’re really pale. Like, as white as a sheet pale.”

Tony touched his face as if he would be able to feel how pale he was. He brought his hand down when he realized he was being stupid. “Yeah.”

“I won’t regret not calling an ambulance?”

“No.”

“I’ll hold you to that. Go buy yourself a Gatorade.” He pushed two quarters into his hand and Tony closed his fingers around them, accepting the arm that helped him up.

He went to the vending machine and bought a blue Gatorade, downing it so fast he thought that he was going to throw up. He tossed the bottle away in a nearby recycling bin and went to the library, plugging in his USB and working on his coding project until nine-thirty, when he finally decided to test it. In retrospect, he probably should have tested it long before, in little bits over the course of the assignment, but Tony was pretty confident in his ability and he was on a nice sugar high from the Gatorade.

_Error. Unexpected token._

What? He pressed the run button again, his throat going dry.

_Error. Unexpected token._

Tony never got code wrong. It was his super power.

He spent thirty minutes going over his code but he couldn’t find anything wrong, nothing was highlighted, the program should’ve run smoothly, it wasn’t possible? He was triple checking his work when the librarian kicked him out at ten and he saved his work and left, his mind reeling. Drug withdrawal was also getting to him and he shivered, his bones aching, his head exploding with headache.

He felt like crying. His day had gone from bad to worse. Hell, his entire week had been stress upon stress and Tony was really, really looking forward to just downing his bottle of Vicodin and sleeping off the high into Friday. He had a physics test tomorrow, and his professor seemed like the kind of guy that would let him retake the test if he was in the hospital for a drug overdose.

He wasn’t hungry, although his stomach was growling; he gagged at the thought of food. His entire body felt heavy, like he had concrete blocks for shoes. It was ten o’clock on a Thursday night and all he wanted to do was sit down on the grass and wait until he died, until God took pity on him and struck him where he stood, taking him in His holy arms and lifting him up to the sky. 

To make matters worse, he had to go back to his dorm and face Rhodey.

_He had to face Rhodey._ The bruise on his face throbbed with his heartbeat. The burn on his shoulder stung when the backpack strap rubbed against it, making him wince with every step. His throat felt constricted again, like his father was squeezing it, and he took deep breaths. His stomach was churning and he felt nauseated from the lack of sleep and withdrawal. He swallowed hard, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth.

Rhodey was at the dorm when he got back, but he didn’t have time for a hello. He threw his backpack down on his bed and went immediately to the washroom, slamming the door behind him by accident, cringing. Rhodey was going to say something. He was-

“You on your period or what?”

There it was. Tony slid down the wall, curling up in front of the toilet, the feeling of vomiting inevitable. His head was pounding and he gripped the side of the bowl to keep him upright, not about to put his face on the surface that many butts have sat on. Even in this state, he had a little bit of dignity he still wanted to protect.

“I’m gonna file for a new roommate. You seriously owe me, by the way. I aired out the dorm and didn’t snitch,” Rhodey spat, looking for a fight.

“I’m really not in the mood for this right now!” Tony called through the door.

“Neither am I! You’ve been a pain in the ass all week!”

Nausea rolled over him and he leaned over the toilet, letting a little bit of spit dribble from his lips.

It started with his father not wanting him, hating his guts just for existing. Then he disappointed Obie, who stuck his neck out for him. He was probably done doing Tony any favours for the rest of his life. And now, now it was Rhodey who hated him, who was tired of rooming with an arrogant asshole. Rhodey was the only reason Tony was alive. And since he lost him, he may as well take a nice drug cocktail with a couple cans of beer and wait until death takes him over.

“No witty come back? That’s it?” Rhodey asked after being met with silence.

“Can you shut up for five seconds?” Tony said. His headache didn’t appreciate the noise, and he didn’t really want anymore reminding of how much of a fucking failure he was.

“Can you? You’re so obnoxious. God.”

Tony grimaced against bile, his stomach cramping. This was going to be so painful. All he had in the past forty-eight hours was a muffin, a coffee, and that Gatorade, and his throat already hurt.

He spat in the toilet, stomach acid making his mouth sour.

_Stop fighting. That just makes it worse. Just get it over with._

He heaved finally, gagging harshly, and Rhodey seemed to have heard and left him alone. The heave ended with a sob and he reached up to turn on the sink to hide the noise, but he knew from previous experiences that the walls were like cardboard. He let out a noise of discomfort when his intestines threatened to turn themselves inside out, and he gripped the sides of the toilet bowl harder.

He threw up again, his stomach not caring about how empty it was, and it burned his bruised neck and the acidic smell made his nose and eyes sting. He tried his very best not to cry. He could cry later. He had to study for his physics test tomorrow.

He shakily stood up on legs that felt like rubber and rinsed his mouth in the sink, then rid the toilet of the evidence. He stared at himself in the mirror for a second, and he would’ve backed away in fear if he had been able to move without collapsing.

His eyes were bloodshot and sunken in. The bags under them were prominent, and his left eye was twitching with the skin around it a dark purple, red around the wound, and yellowing around the edges. He pushed down his hood to get a good look at his neck, and it too was a deep purple, going from red to pink at the most tender areas then fading into yellow. He was literally a rainbow. He didn’t have the energy to take off his sweater, so he didn’t check the burn; it still hurt and was apparently leaking, there was a wet spot on the fabric above it about the size of a quarter. That wasn’t good.

He emerged from the washroom, his hood up and his head low. He hoped his mood would be a deterrent, but no such luck.

“Hungover?” Rhodey asked from his place on the bed.

“Why’re you suddenly so mean?” Tony asked hoarsely. He sat at his desk and opened his physics textbook, preparing to take notes.

Rhodey was silent. So there.

“You’re a piece of shit, Tony.” Rhodey spat after a minute, and Tony snapped his pencil in half.

It should not have been enough to break him. He’d been called a piece of shit too many times to count. It was practically his brand.

But he stared down at his textbook, tears filling his eyes and threatening to spill over. The lump in his throat was even more prominent, and it hurt to swallow. He could feel reality slipping away from him, his thoughts spiraling downward without his permission.

He thought about his father. Tony was a mistake, he was never supposed to be born, and he was nothing but annoying. He was supposed to be aborted, and maybe he really should’ve been; death seemed like such a welcoming guy suddenly. Tony closed his eyes, and his father’s face showed up behind his eyelids, baring down at him and pushing him against the wall with his hand closing around his neck because he was a _mistake._

He thought of Obie, who had managed to somehow convince Howard to give Tony a chance- just one chance to prove himself. And Tony had completely and utterly fucked up. He had _failed_ to prove his building expertise, he had _failed_ to show his father he was wrong, and he had lost probably his only chance at finding some sort of father-son relationship. Tony had let Obie down. He was only trying to make things better, and Tony had thrown that all away.

He thought of his failed school assignments. His forty-five on the math paper. Forgetting to ask the girl for her notes. The test he completely bullshitted while high, the classes with Rhodey that made him feel like he was drowning. He felt bad for annoying the dude who had to give him papers to write on because he forgot his binder. He was mad at himself for not eating, for not sleeping, because it led to him passing out in front of everyone like a fucking Victorian woman. _And the code_. The code he had messed up, he never messed up code. That was the one thing he was genuinely proud of, and now that was over.

He thought of fighting with Rhodey, the one person he could actually admit that he loved like family.

Tony wrenched himself back to the present with immense difficulty. Rhodey hasn’t said anything, probably thought he was giving him the silent treatment or whatever. It broke his heart even more until it _physically_ hurt, the hollow in his chest caving in and consuming him whole.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, his voice wavering. He put his shaky hands in his lap and stared at the words of his textbook as they blurred together.

Rhodey was silent because Rhodey didn’t care. No one did at that point. He was alone.

_You’re a piece of shit, Tony._

“Tones?” Rhodey asked, his voice suddenly gentle and worried.

Tony shook his head. A tear fell on his textbook and he wiped it away, but it left a water stain anyway, making the words there curve and bend. More fell and he pushed the book away, bringing his elbow up to rest on the table and letting his head fall into his hand. 

He couldn’t concentrate. He didn’t have time for this. He had to study.

“Shit. I don’t know. I’m sorry too.”

That was just pity. Because he was crying. That was it. Rhodey didn’t mean it. How could he go from hating Tony to being sorry.

His heart hurt, pounding in time with the throb of his headache. He took a shaky breath that was too loud in his head, too loud around the dead-silent room, it seemed to echo off the walls and the embarrassment only brought more tears, and he couldn’t stop them from falling, streaming down his cheeks, and his nose was running and he was really, really crying now. Crying like the times he reserved for when he was alone in the washroom and Rhodey was out. 

“Leave your work alone. C’mere,” Rhodey told him.

Tony shook his head. He let his breath go all at once and then stopped his diaphragm so he didn’t have to make all those stupid crying noises.

“Tones.”

Rhodey was right behind him now. 

“Look at me.”

A hand fell on his shoulder and he jumped, flinching hard. The sudden movement meant letting a sob leak out unintentionally and he cringed at the broken noise that came from his throat. He hid his face, facing his knees with a sleeved hand covering both his eyes.

“You really have to tell me what’s going on.”

He wanted to. He wanted to tell Rhodey about everything so badly that he felt like he was ripping at the seams. But Stark men are made of iron; they aren’t blubbering messes, little teenage brats who guilt their roommates into forgiving them with some sob story about not being hugged enough as a child. No, Tony had to be as vague as possible.

“I failed,” he blurted out finally, his voice nasally and high-pitched and teary.

“Failed what?” Rhodey brought his other hand up to massage Tony’s tight shoulders. His fingers dug into the burned skin there and Tony pulled away quickly, aching for touch but it all just hurt.

“Everything,” he answered. _Tests. The code. Building the thing for Obie. You._

“You gotta be a little more specific here.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony breathed out, still looking down. He sniffed, wiping at his nose with his other arm.

“What did you fail? I’ll help you. You can always ask me for help,” Rhodey offered, his voice going high and gentle like he was talking to a toddler.

_A lost cause. No use_. “You can’t.”

“I can.”

That was a bit harsher. A bit more defiant. Tony flinched at it and mentally cursed, trying to act like he was just moving his hands to wipe at his eyes. He couldn’t keep doing this. Rhodey seemed to have noticed the aborted movement and kept his hands to himself this time.

“Are you mad at me?” Tony asked quietly, not caring about how childish he sounded.

“No. No. Not anymore. There’s something going on with you. And you need to tell me what it is.” Rhodey shook his head.

Tony could’ve laughed. Something wrong with him? More like everything. He felt the words bubbling up inside of him, threatening to take him under if he didn’t get them out in the very near future. He bargained with himself. _Just don’t say anything about Howard. Rhodey will get school and stress. Not Howard._

Tony took a deep breath, the list going through his mind faster than he could orate it. “I failed that test we got. I got my code wrong on my project due in two days. I failed my math paper. I passed out in Chem.”

“You passed out?” Rhodey asked, surprised.

“And I made the guy beside me mad because I forgot my binder and I had to ask him for paper,” Tony continued, his mouth verbal diarrhea-ing.

“You passed out?” Rhodey asked again.

“I didn’t sleep last night.”

“I have a feeling that part is my fault,” Rhodey said sheepishly.

“I worked last night.”

“You didn’t eat last night. I don’t think you had lunch either that day. Didn’t see you at breakfast,” Rhodey said, thinking, his tone of voice slowly becoming more and more horrified.

“I had a muffin and a Gatorade,” Tony mumbled.

“In two days?”

Tony nodded slowly, wiping at his face.

“Dude.”

And of course, the arguing with Rhodey didn’t help his mental state; the only person who believed in him, who saw him for more than his money and his brains, suddenly hated him. Tony was not naïve to think that it was all Rhodey’s fault; the bulk of it had been his own. It was all a product of his worsening mood.

“I don’t wanna fight with you anymore,” Tony blurted out.

“I don’t either.” Rhodey knelt down beside the desk chair so he was closer to eye-level with Tony. His hands slowly reached out to rest on Tony’s knee, so that he could pull away if he wanted to. He didn’t.

“I’m sorry I was a dick,” Tony continued, hating how _gross_ his voice sounded through tears but he couldn’t stop.

“I was one too. I’m sorry.”

“No. I was, I was just- I was mean and I kept- I kept yelling and- and- I kept yelling at you and-” his breath was coming in short hiccups and he stumbled over his words, his brain short-circuiting.

“Shh. It’s okay. I forgive you,” Rhodey said, squeezing Tony’s knee. “Look at me?”

He shook his head. He knew what he looked like when he cried. It wasn’t pretty.

“I’ve seen you cry before.”

“I look like a mess,” he breathed out, pressing his hand against his forehead.

“I don’t really care.”

Tony slowly turned, black eye and all, and felt Rhodey’s gaze stripping him and reading him. He felt naked, even with his hood pulled up and the strings tied and the clothes that he hadn’t changed out of in days. He needed a shower, and broke eye contact at that final thought, staring at the wall beside Rhodey’s head.

“You wanna tell me the truth? Where you got that from?” he asked finally, gesturing at the left side of his face.

Tony quickly turned away, wiping his eyes. He tugged his sweater sleeve over his hand again and pressed it against his mouth to stop himself from making any noise.

“Answer me, Tones,” Rhodey said, a new sense of urgency in his voice.

He didn’t want Rhodey to know, but he was trapped. Rhodey would _definitely_ not let Tony just lie and yell his way out, not when he was crying like this, not when Rhodey knew that there was actually something wrong and he wasn’t just being an asshole. Tony cursed quietly, rubbing at his face and covering his mouth with his sweater sleeve again.

“Tones.”

Tony took a shuddering breath, muted by the fabric. He closed his eyes for a second, tears escaping him again. “My dad. Pushed me into the desk.”

Rhodey stiffened. “He the one who broke the missile?”

“Pushed me onto it.”

Rhodey was quiet, his hand rubbing his chin. Tony stayed facing the wall, his eyes open and unblinking as if that would stop the tears from falling. He breathed through the fabric on his sleeve, the air hot but it stopped the shuddering of his breath from being the only noise in the room. 

“Any other damage?” Rhodey asked finally.

There was no way in heaven or hell that he was going to tell him about his neck. “He smoked.”

“Ah.”

Tony nodded. The burn on his shoulder was throbbing as if as a reminder that it existed. Same with his other bruises.

“Maybe you should get some sleep,” Rhodey whispered, standing up but leaving a hand on Tony’s arm while he did.

He shook his head. “Physics test tomorrow.”

“You actually listen in that class. You’ll be fine.”

“I failed my math paper and I paid attention,” Tony pointed out.

“Knots? Topology? That’s a whole separate field. Completely useless,” Rhodey reassured him.

“Still a fail.”

“You’re overthinking.” Rhodey rubbed Tony’s arm with his thumb while Tony shook his head. “You’re allowed to mess up.”

“I can’t.” Tony felt the tears rise in his throat again. He squeezed his eyes shut.

“You can. It’s okay.”

Tony looked up at the wall and tried to stop the tears, shaking his head again. They fell anyway.

“You’re not supposed to be perfect, Tones.”

“My dad-”

“Your dad can suck my dick. C’mon. Get changed then go into bed,” Rhodey finalized with a pat on the back. “You smell like ass.”

Tony obediently got up, his clothes feeling stiff and gross. Rhodey threw a pair of clean grey sweatpants and a white, short-sleeved t-shirt at him and he went to the washroom to get changed. Clean clothes would be nice, even though Tony just wanted to bathe in warm water and maybe shove his head underneath and maybe never resurface.

As Tony took off the sweatshirt, he realized he forgot to grab a clean one. He paused, looking at himself in the mirror again. The bruises were dark. Very, _very_ visible.

He got changed anyway, relishing the feeling of soft, clean clothes for once and pulled on the dirty sweater. He put the hood up again and tied the strings together, praying that Rhodey wouldn’t say anything about it, even though the odds were not in his favour. He had spent three days in it, what was another couple hours until he could get Rhodey off of his neck and get changed.

Rhodey gave him a look when he emerged. “Sweater off.”

“I’m cold,” Tony argued.

“Then change it.”

“No.” He tried to think of a plausible excuse, hugging himself.

“Tony.”

“No.” His bottom lip wobbled and he caught it between his teeth, closing his eyes against Niagara Falls.

“You’re hiding something else.”

“No.” His voice came out strained and he hid his face in his hands.

“Are you… hurting? Yourself? Is that why you don’t want the sweater off?” Rhodey asked tentatively.

Tony shook his head. He wiped his tears away and grabbed a different sweater from the closet, holding his arms stiff to his body and his head down. He turned around to go back to the washroom, but Rhodey was by his side in an instant, blocking his path. Tony tried to step around him, but Rhodey didn’t let him leave and he walked right into him.

“Tony.”

“I can’t.” Tony’s face crumpled with more tears. 

“Tony.”

He squeezed his eyes shut as Rhodey tugged on the hem of his sweater, lightly pulling it off. Finally, Tony cooperated by lifting his arms above his head. The sweater was off and on the ground, and Rhodey went still beside him.

“Oh my god.”

Tony went to quickly pull on the clean sweater but Rhodey stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Oh my god,” he said again.

“It looks worse than it is.”

“Tony. Tony. Oh my god.”

Tony pressed his lips tight together, leaning into Rhodey and pressing his forehead into his shoulder. He knew he was shaking, a big fat fucking mess, but the kid in him just really, really wanted a hug.

“This is not okay.” Rhodey’s arms hesitantly surrounded him.

Tony blinked quickly and more tears fell, and even though he didn’t want to get Rhodey's shirt wet, he couldn’t pull away. He would fall without Rhodey’s touch. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get back up again.

“I’m serious. We need to go to CPS,” Rhodey said, his mouth close to his ear.

Tony shook his head. He’d be dead if he did. Howard would win, with his expensive lawyers and excellent lying skills, and Tony would just be worse-off. Rhodey knew that Howard sometimes got violent, but he never knew the extent of it. And he hadn’t even meant to let him find out.

“Is there anything else he did to you?” 

Tony was silent, debating. He kept his face on Rhodey's shoulder so that he wasn’t able to see his expression. 

“Tony,” Rhodey whispered. “This is really, _really_ serious.”

He closed his eyes, sniffling. He took a deep breath in before breaking. “My right shoulder. Cigarette.”

Rhodey pulled away and pushed Tony’s short-sleeve up a bit, examining the burn on the flesh there. “I think it might be infected. Did you clean it?”

Tony shook his head. It was a burn. There had been worse. But looking down at it, a clear sort of liquid was pooling around the burn, and the area around it was bright pink and puffy; he jumped a little when Rhodey’s fingers pushed lightly on the skin there. Maybe he should’ve at least rinsed it with water, or put a band-aid on it.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this sooner,” Rhodey grabbed a tissue from the bedside table and cleaned the burn a little.

Tony shook his head again, unable to speak. His throat felt clogged.

“This is really serious, man.”

He swallowed hard, mentally preparing himself to speak. “I’m sorry I was so mean to you.”

“I’m sorry too. I should’ve known there was something else. You’re usually not so mad for an entire week.”

“I didn’t want you to. I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

Tony nodded. Rhodey’s hand moved up to his neck and he flinched, automatically stepping back. Rhodey withdrew his hand.

“Does it… does it hurt? Your neck?” he asked.

“Only when I touch it.”

“Your eye and your burn?”

“Yeah.”

“You tell me _when_ this happens. Not days after.”

“You were mad at me,” Tony said, his voice thick with tears.

“I don’t care.”

“I don’t- I don’t-”

“I’m sorry.”

Tony nodded, sniffling. He hated crying. But he couldn’t stop.

“I got you now.” Rhodey whispered.

Tony shook in his arms, grabbing onto his shirt fabric as if he was afraid that Rhodey was going to leave. He closed his eyes, ignoring the way his mind tried to bring him down another spiral. Rhodey smelled like Rhodey, he smelled like home and comfort, and he was a great hugger, and he grounded Tony. He was his rock.

“Game plan: we clean your burn, you have a glass of water and something from our stash of granola bars, and go to bed. That sound doable?” Rhodey said after a few minutes of silence.

Tony nodded against his shoulder, closing his eyes and finally pulling away. Rhodey guided him to sit on the toilet seat, sensing that if he wasn’t holding onto something, Tony would just collapse; his legs felt shaky and numb. Rhodey was good that way.

“Take off your shirt, I’ll be right back,” he said, leaving the washroom.

Tony took a deep breath in, let it out, then carefully lifted the fabric above his head. He hadn’t stopped crying and his headache had gotten so much worse, but he felt kinda okay. He felt better now, having gotten the weight of the bruises and Howard’s abuse off of his shoulders. Also, Rhodey liked him again; that was the bulk of his worries right there.

“Here. Eat.” Rhodey shoved a granola bar into Tony’s hands and filled a plastic cup with water, setting it on the edge of the sink. “Drink that when you’re done.”

Tony unwrapped the bar slowly, his hands having trouble but finally managing it. The first bite felt like he was biting into cardboard and his jaw felt tired and heavy, but Rhodey was right; he really needed to get something in his stomach. Rhodey himself was opening the first-aid kit that was mandatory in every dorm room, searching for a band-aid and some antiseptic ointment. He finally pulled out a small squeeze-bottle of Fucidin and a box of bandages.

“Keep eating,” Rhodey instructed, and Tony’s attention was brought back to his granola bar. He had only taken two bites, but it sat heavy in his stomach and he really, _really_ did not feel like eating. He took another tentative bite.

Rhodey wet a washcloth with soap and warm water, then gently rubbed Tony’s burn with it. He grimaced at the initial pain, jumping away slightly, but Rhodey held him still. He then applied a tiny bit of the clear Fucidin and bandaged it up, washing his hands in the sink and throwing away the garbage. Tony took a fourth bite of the bar, the arm holding it heavy and uncooperative.

“If you want Advil, you’re gonna have to finish that,” Rhodey said sternly. “I’m not going to let a sixteen year-old get entirely preventable stomach ulcers.”

“Advil doesn’t give you stomach ulcers,” Tony stated.

“On empty stomachs it does.”

Tony took another bite. His body felt like lead and he struggled to swallow it.

“Tony.”

Tony stared at the granola bar. “I can’t eat it.”

Rhodey sighed. “Can I buy you like, a McFlurry? A smoothie of some sort?”

“It’s ten-thirty at night.”

“The convenience store beside us is twenty-four hour,” Rhodey said, referring to the one across the block.

Tony shook his head. “I’m fine, Rhodey.”

“You and I have two _very_ different definitions of fine.” He lowered his voice, as if someone else was listening in. “Look, Tones. I’m here to take care of you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“Who gives a fuck if I was mad at you before? Believe me, the pressure on you now, I would’ve cracked a long time ago,” Rhodey said, squeezing his good shoulder. “Right now, you need a friend.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony mumbled.

“Stop fucking apologizing, man. Do you want a smoothie or not?”

So, Tony ended up sitting on the curb in front of the convenience store, a strawberry banana smoothie clutched in his hand. Rhodey swas sat beside him and slurped on his own. The condensation on the plastic cup and the cool night air made his hands freeze, but his heart felt warm, so warm, he hadn’t even realized that it had ever been cold. Tony leaned against Rhodey, his head falling onto his sturdy shoulder. He sucked on his red plastic straw absent-mindedly, watching the cars go by in the street, the headlights and taillights making his eyes burn.

“Thank you,” Tony whispered, so quiet that he wasn’t sure that Rhodey had even heard.

But Rhodey draped his arm around Tony’s shoulders and pulled him closer. It was almost midnight, it was cold outside, and Tony’s eyes felt gritty and the tears that still rolled down his face every few minutes were freezing on his cheeks. So why did he feel the safest he had ever felt in years?

“I got your back, Tones,” Rhodey said quietly. “You just gotta let me know when you need my help. You got it?”

Tony nodded, his vision going blurry with tears again. He took a sip of his smoothie and watched as the lights all merged together until he blinked and they fell onto the arm of his jacket.

“I love you, man. You’re my brother.”

It was the first time that Rhodey had ever told him he loved him. Heck, it was the first time that _anybody_ had ever told Tony that they loved him, he had no recollection of his parents saying that, no memory of Jarvis saying that (not that he was allowed to), and no one he had ever dated had said that. It was the first time he’d heard ‘love’ being directed to himself, and he thought that maybe, maybe he might love Rhodey as well.

“I love you too,” Tony admitted, not caring how his voice cracked and sounded thick with tears, and then his smoothie was shaking in his hands or maybe it was his hands that were shaking, but he was sobbing into Rhodey’s shoulder as Rhodey had both arms squeezing him tight and it felt _so so good_ to just let all the tears out and not hide it anymore and was he having an epiphany? This was the single worst and best day of his life.

“Look at you,” Rhodey said fondly, pulling away to look at Tony’s face. “You’re a mess.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony mumbled, but he was smiling, and even though he was still on the brink of falling apart again, he felt _so good._

“Always picking up after you, aren’t I?” Rhodey joked, standing up and holding his hand out. “C’mon; let’s get you a bed and you’ll feel better in the morning.”

“I already feel better,” Tony said, taking the hand and Rhodey hauled him to his feet. “You’re my brother now.”

“Never viewed you as less.” Rhodey slung his arm around Tony’s shoulders and they walked back to the dorm room.

Later, Tony was lying in bed, Rhodey fast asleep in the small space beside him with his arms around his torso. It was in that moment, that he knew that with Rhodey there, it was going to all be okay. He’d sort things out with his father, and even if he didn’t, just getting the abuse off his chest made him feel a million pounds lighter. It didn’t matter if he got a hundred percent in every class, and as Rhodey had reassured him a couple thousand times, it wasn’t expected either; it was just his stupid brain. Most of it was in his head, anyway. And if both Rhodey and Tony could squeeze together in one twin bed, which was basically physically impossible, they could probably do anything.

Tony closed his eyes and sank into Rhodey’s arms. He was warm. 

_He was loved._

He fell asleep like that, his body succumbing to rest, his heart full and his mind finally quiet. Rhodey’s words echoed in his head. Maybe he would never know how much Tony had needed to hear those words, how much they meant to him, but it was okay. It was finally all okay.

_I love you, man._


End file.
